


Lukewarm Coffee and Hot Chocolate

by BuzzCat



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Post-Weirdmageddon, and it has to happen at like four am over coffee and hot chocolate, look these boys have some stuff to talk about
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 07:26:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14279940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuzzCat/pseuds/BuzzCat
Summary: Dipper wakes up at an absurd hour of the morning and can't sleep. When he goes downstairs, however, he realizes that maybe there's something else bothering him.AKA, Dipper and Stan have a heart-to-heart about some stuff





	Lukewarm Coffee and Hot Chocolate

Dipper awoke with a start, gasping into consciousness with sweat soaking through his pajamas. Bill had been there, even after they’d done everything and after they’d almost lost Grunkle Stan and Bill had been _right there_ —

There was nothing there. Dipper knew there was nothing hovering over the end of his bed with a single eye in the middle of a yellow triangle. But that didn’t stop the tension in his chest, like a balloon blown too big and seconds from exploding. He could feel it pressing on his sternum, inside and outside until he felt like he was going to crack and—

“Dipper?”

Mabel’s voice cut through the panic. He whipped his head around to see his sister looking at him, worried with sleep still in her eyes, Waddles asleep beside her. “Dipper, what happened?” Mabel asked as she rubbed at one eye.

“Nothing, it was, it was just a dream.” Dipper fell back onto his bed, staring up at the same old wooden beams he’d been staring at all summer.

“Like a good dream?” Mabel asked with a yawn. Before Dipper could answer, Mabel was asleep again. He couldn’t blame her. Mabel had been running Mabel Juice and adrenaline, determined to make Grunkle Stan remember everything. She’d been mostly successful over the past few days, but Dipper knew that all her excitement had wiped her out. He watched her drift back asleep. Dipper still felt his heart pounding in his chest, the echo of Bill’s laugh still resounding in his mind. Despite the fact it was nowhere near sunrise, Dipper knew he was done sleeping for the night. Carefully, he crawled out of bed and silently made his way downstairs, avoiding the stairs that creaked and the floorboards that rose just enough to trip him. When Dipper got downstairs, however, he saw that the light was already on in the kitchen. Frowning, he poked his head around the corner.

Grunkle Stan sat at the table, a cup of coffee in front of him and a faraway look in his eyes. He was tapping his fingers against his thumb, one two three four one two three four. Dipper stepped forward, clearing his throat,

“Grunkle Stan?”

Grunkle Stan stopped his fingers turned to look at him and for a second Dipper was afraid that Grunkle Stan wouldn’t recognize him. But he smiled, albeit a little shakily, and gestured Dipper over,

“Hey kid. Can’t sleep?”

“Not anymore,” Dipper said as he filled a mug with water and put it in the microwave. Stan nodded,

“Yeah, that’s about how it goes these days.”

Dipper smiled at Grunkle Stan’s words, but it was fleeting. He mixed cocoa mix into the hot water silently. There was something on his mind, something that had been lingering since before Weirdmageddon. Ever since he’d met Ford, he’d started to wonder if that was why Stan didn’t like him. Dipper was on his tiptoes, reaching for the mini marshmallows Mabel kept in the cupboard, as he asked,

“Grunkle Stan, do you not like me because I’m like Ford?”

Stan almost spit his coffee out, “What? Where’d you get a harebrained idea like that?”

Dipper had found the marshmallows and turned to face Stan, clutching them closely and unable to meet his grunkle’s eyes,

“It’s just that…you and Ford don’t really get along. And I’m a lot like Ford. We’re both really into mysteries and anomalies, we’re both until DD & More D. And…I don’t know…” Dipper stared intensely at a knot in the wooden floor. The truth was, he couldn’t even be mad if Grunkle Stan didn’t like him. Dipper had thought his grunkle was evil. Had accused him of being evil to his face, when all Grunkle Stan had wanted was to bring his brother back. And they’d never really had a chance to talk that over, since Ford had turned up right away and anything before that had been swept away in the whirlwind that was…well, Ford. The silence continued and finally, Dipper looked up.

Grunkle Stan looked like someone had hit him with a two-by-four and Dipper suddenly wanted to take everything he’d said and shove it back under whatever rock it crawled out from.

“You…you think I don’t like you?” Grunkle Stan asked softly. Dipper shrugged. He threw the bag of marshmallows onto the counter and started pacing, wildly gesticulating as he spoke,

“I mean, you have good reason not to. I called you a liar and a bad person when you were just trying to get Great Uncle Ford back. I remind you of the brother that you have an— _at best_ —complicated relationship with. And I wouldn’t leave well enough alone, constantly investigating the weird and paranormal activities of Gravity Falls, even after you kept trying to tell me not to. And—”

“Woah, hey, kid,” Grunkle Stan stood up and Dipper stopped pacing, looking at his grunkle. It suddenly hit him how old Grunkle Stan was. It somehow never clicked that his grunkle was old, not when he and Mabel first showed up, not during the portal debacle, not even during Weirdmageddon and when Stan had lost his memories. Somehow Stan had always seemed to radiate life and energy, despite his constant complaining about his old man aches and pains. He was Mr. Mystery, always ready with a quip or a cheap shot or a story about his life of crime. Dipper never noticed just how deep the lines in his uncle’s face were, how gray his hair was.

Stan leaned down until he was eye-to-eye with Dipper, “I know I’m not so great at being a Hallmark-card kind of grunkle. But all that stuff you said, that isn’t anything I’d hold against you. You calling me a liar and a bad person, you weren’t far off the mark. I’ve been lying to every person in this town for years. It’s not like I’ve really been a _good_ person. And of course you were going to investigate Gravity Falls once you realized how much weird and crazy stuff was happening. Are you kidding me? Any twelve-year-old would go nuts for how insane this place gets.” Stan gestured around to indicate the general weirdness that was Gravity Falls. He smiled at Dipper, but Dipper still looked like he was waiting for the other shoe to fall.

“But I do remind you of Great Uncle Ford.”

Stan snorted fondly, “Yeah, you do.” Dipper looked down, his fears confirmed. Stan continued, “But you remind me of the good stuff.”

Dipper looked up, confused. Stan grinned, “What, you forgot me and him are twins who were as close as you and Mabel? It’s not like every memory I have of him is bad. You remind me of when we were kids. Hell, you remind me of me just as much as you remind me of him.”

Dipper smiled slightly at that, the first smile in the whole conversation. Stan pulled him into a hug, one Dipper gladly reciprocated.

“Dipper, you’re my family. You’re my great-nephew, knucklehead. Whatever issues I have with my brother aren’t a part of that.” Something about that statement made Dipper warm and happy, finally laying to rest any fears he had. Stan chuckled, “Besides, when have you ever known me to keep quiet on what I think of someone?”

Dipper laughed at that.

“You, uh, do have a talent for sharing your opinions with the world,” he said, letting go of his grunkle. Dipper finally added the marshmallows to his hot chocolate. Stan put the bag away as Dipper stirred his drink, the marshmallows melting in and making the hot chocolate even richer. Stan returned to the table, taking a sip of his now-lukewarm coffee. Dipper smiled to himself. Stan was right; they were family. And nothing would ever change that.


End file.
